Nicknames
by redwolfbane
Summary: Natasha and Bucky, both used as weapons are tormented through the years. Maybe their story is simple maybe they are all that they can remember.


He looked familiar.

Then again everyone looked familiar to her these days.

Dark hair. Dark frown. Dark clothes. Blue eyes.

The only color on him was a red star. Brilliant and shining. On his left arm like a badge of honor.

She liked red. Red was pretty.

"Number:"

He stated dully.

She jutted out her chin with a toss of her red hair and responded. "Natalia. And I'm a ballerina."

He didn't blink an eye. "Number:"

"And I like your star."

"Number:"

She squinted at him, green eyes surveying his blank face. "I do not respond to a number."

He raised a communicator to his mouth methodically. Green eyes widened at this as she looked from him to the door. She took two quick strides before kicking his arm to the side sending the communicator flying.

Her foot snapped with a sickening crack and she screamed, dropping to the floor.

Sharp pain shot up her leg and she bit back her cry - scrambling away from him.

He blinked as he watched her. A sudden spark in his eyes as his brows knit together.

He took a step toward her.

She clawed away, limp foot dragging behind her. Hand gripping for anything to defend herself as he approached.

He bent down and she tried to kick him with her good foot but he dodged easily.

"Stop."

His voice was rough - like his hand as he reached out and grabbed her, pulling her toward him.

She threw a well aimed punch but he caught her arm, wrapping her in his hold before picking her up under one arm.

"Let me go!"

She struggled against him but he carried her for the door.

"I'm sorry, Natasha." Was all he said as the door opened and handlers came in to take them both away.

All of Natalia's friends were scared of him, especially after seeing her foot. Natalia, however, emphatically disagreed to their allegations of him as just another one of the handlers or a cold blooded assassin.

She said he had a pretty star.

They dreaded going to train with him as each of them were consistently bruised and bloodied.

They said he was an animal. Maybe a robot. Not human.

Natalia disagreed.

Natalia got no special treatment. She left each lesson bruised as the rest but she insisted he was more then the monster they demonized him as.

"He's terrifying."

Natalia shook her head. "He gave me a nickname: Natasha."

"Liar. He doesn't talk."

She trained with him for a long time. Training was her favorite part of the day.

He would rarely talk. He never called her "Natasha" again. But she brought him a cookie once that Sasha had smuggled back from an out of town mission. It was even red. But he didn't eat it and she threw it at him instead.

She started to talk with him as they trained, recounting many things she'd learned or telling him about her missions as he fought her.

She decided to call him "старший брат" older brother.

She'd always wanted a brother.

The Black Widow program didn't train boys and the only men she interacted with were handlers and guards. She didn't like men.

But she decided he was her brother.

The other girls laughed at her for talking to him. She was crazy and delusional, they said.

"Hello, brother. It's me, Natasha." She would start every training session. He never replied.

She adored the nickname he'd given her. Although just once, she would often refer to herself as "Natasha" in her own thoughts. But it was her nickname from him. She would yell and hit the other girls for calling her that.

One day Natalia was attacked. She didn't know that there were going to be men with guns. Sasha and Dima got shot and she hid.

The men wore eagles and when they found her they shot her too.

She didn't like eagles.

He killed them all. But they shot him many times. He didn't heal as good back then and he bled all the way through the facility.

"Natasha?"

She scrambled from under the bed when she heard his voice.

She rarely heard it, but she'd recognize it anywhere.

He scooped her in his arms and carried her off the base. He killed their men. They ran.

He bandaged her up and she tried to stop his bleeding. That was too much red.

They hid and he finally spoke again.

"I'm sorry, Natasha."

He fought the handlers when they came, but they took them both and put them back to sleep.

She woke up before him and lived a while. She didn't remember him.

She didn't remember anything.

The man that trained her was gruff. But she didn't trust him.

She didn't trust anyone.

When she saw him again she was on a mission. He intercepted her and she got orders to turn over the mission to him.

"Hello, brother. It's me, Natasha."

He didn't respond.

He fell off a building later and she caught him with a wire and he hit his head on a wall.

She kept him in one of the villages while he was unconscious. When he woke up he just stared at the ceiling.

She watched out for him but it wasn't until the handlers came and beat her that his eyes flashed at her scream.

"Natasha!"

He killed most of them but they took him again. They beat her again. Trained her harder. Made her stronger.

He didn't remember her for a while but she kept talking to him until he would say her name everyday.

They refreshed him a few times but he finally began to remember her every time.

Only her.

"Who are you?" She asked once.

He blinked at her.

"I don't know."

She broke in and ransacked his files. She didn't have long, but she found few things.

"You're name is James." she told him one day.

He barely offered a nod.

"You were in WWII."

He nodded again.

She laid her head in his shoulder. He stroked her red hair. He always stroked her red hair.

She was chosen for the Black Widow program. They told her she'd be leaving the base. She told them no. They beat her again.

They said they needed to break her face to make her look different.

So they did.

She screamed during the procedure and he came out of nowhere. He killed them all.

"I'm sorry, Natasha."

He said as he carried her from the room.

They almost killed him. They wiped him again and finished her surgery. They tried to wipe her memory of him.

"You don't have family. You don't have relationships. You are a weapon."

She complied, but she didn't forget. She'd only talk to him occasionally when she could sneak to his quarters. As always, he barely responded. Blue eyes always far away.

She left then, relocated to Bosnia.

She remember him.

Even when she didn't remember herself.

She still liked red stars.

She still liked her red hair.

He came to Bosnia. He found her.

"Natasha."

She looked up quickly at the voice. "James?"

"I'm sorry."

They walked together to make a hit. An important one.

She watched him.

"My favorite color is red. And I like your star." She finally admitted.

The blue eyes watched her for a long moment. "I like your hair."

That was the most complicated sentence he ever said. Then he was shot and she held him bleeding out in a kitchen.

"I don't like red all the time." She muttered, hands stained with his blood.

He watched her, fingers brushing her hair.

"I do."

They found them again and took him to a facility.

She broke into the facility to save him when she found out he was the prototype for a new tech improvement that would most likely kill him.

She tried to fight them all but she almost died. He turned himself over to stop her.

"No, James, I will kill them all."

"They will kill you. I have to go. I'm sorry, Natasha."

She didn't remember him because they wiped her memory. They tortured her until she had no recollection of him.

They did the same to him. They ripped out prices of his mind.

A man found her one day. He smiled and she thought that it would be nice to have a brother. She didn't know why.

"What's your name?"

She couldn't remember a name for a while but it was somehow safe to say "Natasha".

And that's all she was known as for 15 years. She didn't have cells anymore, or beatings and she found a purpose.

She didn't mind eagles so much anymore and even added blue and white and purple to her favorite colors.

She fought him. But she didn't remember.

She tried to kill him, but never saw him as anything but an assassin.

She electrocuted him once and he was unconscious for three days.

"Who are you working for?"

Silence.

A shot was fired and she screamed as she dropped to the floor. He stopped dull eyes sparking for a second.

"Who are you!?" She yelled.

He stared blankly away and muttered.

"Hello, Natasha. It's me, James."


End file.
